Centre to assist Andhra Pradesh in power reforms

New Delhi: The Centre is working towards providing good quality electricity at affordable tariff to Andhra Pradesh in the next one year and help the southern state initiate power reforms.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal said the state-run NTPC has agreed to let the state government use its railway facilities for transportation of coal to fire Andhra Pradesh's thermal power project and generate 500 MW of additional electricity in the next 2-3 months.

"We are working on a plan where Andhra Pradesh can get good quality and affordable power within the next 12 months," Goyal told reporters after meeting the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu.

"One major decision taken today is that NTPC will allow the use of their facilities, their railway track to transport adequate coal so that within the next 2-3 months AP will start getting additional 500 MW of power at reasonable prices," he said.

"This is going to be a national policy which will enable cross usage of government and public assets in public interest," he added.

Power Ministry and Andhra Pradesh government have also agreed to work together to make the latter a model state for 24x7 power for every household, industrial and commercial establishment, and to simultaneously ensure that farmers get good quality power when required.

The central and the state governments will together formulate an integrated plan to be implemented over the next 2 years in order to establish Andhra Pradesh as a model state in providing good transmission, distribution and metering network.

"We have initiated discussions for expanding the generating capacity, strengthening transmission and distribution and metering of every household as part of the proposed integrated plan," Goyal added.

Emphasizing that Centre will address the power issues of both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, he said, "I dont think there is any dispute between the people of Andhra Pradesh and

Telangana and even during today's meeting Naidu has said that he does not distinguish between the people of both regions and wants his state to progress along with Telangana.

The current installed power capacity of Andhra Pradesh is at 17,731.07 MW, with a peak power deficit of 8.1 per cent in May.